


Gristle

by SenkoWakimarin



Category: Cable (Comics), Punisher (Comics)
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Body Horror, Gore, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-23
Updated: 2019-10-23
Packaged: 2020-12-31 20:45:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21151946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SenkoWakimarin/pseuds/SenkoWakimarin
Summary: If the wounds were mirrored, if Nathan's other side had taken those shots, there's not a chance in hell he'd be alive for Frank to even worry about keeping together long enough to get back to civilization.





	Gristle

**Author's Note:**

  * For [inbox](https://archiveofourown.org/users/inbox/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Anything That Sticks](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21143270) by [inbox](https://archiveofourown.org/users/inbox/pseuds/inbox). 

> FOR INBOX, FOR SYNERGY
> 
> Gristle is not inspired by inbox's wonderful fic 'Anything That Sticks', the two were written concurrently. I'm marking it as inspired simply because they ARE similar fics and inbox published first. 
> 
> Inbox and I are not allowed to be in the same hemisphere because if we were any closer physically than we currently are, our massive brains would throw off the Earth's tilt.

It's only the fact that it isn't the normal, healthy-looking human flesh that gives Frank any hope at all that this isn't going to kill Cable. 

As it is, his hopes aren't terribly high. How can they be? The metal shit doesn't bleed, but Cable's taken three hits that blasted holes so wide in his shoulder and upper arm it's really only some kind of miracle that the arm is still attached at all. In accordance with all things miraculous, it's baffling and more than a little horrifying to look right at. The worst of the mess is a hole big enough Frank's pretty sure he could stick all four of his fingers into it if he wanted, blasted through the thickness of Cable's bicep. 

Frank does not want to stick his fingers in that hole. To be very honest, Frank is kind of panicking over having to touch Cable at all right now, which is extremely out of the normal way of things for them, whether one of them is injured or not. 

Thing is, they've worked together so many times by this point and they've both gotten their fair share of injuries -- hell, Frank could probably map most of their jobs together on his own flesh, and the jobs he didn't get marks from, Cable did. That's the nature of the beast, the way it goes working this kind of shit they work; you learn to accept that you're going to get hurt and aim to ensure the enemy gets hurt worse.

Cable's never been so badly hurt, working with Frank, that he's passed completely out. Hell, when it's been long enough between their being able to, Cable seems to have trouble sleeping even when it's just Frank with him; he's stayed conscious through broken noses and kicks to the jaw, laid awake on Frank's big bed with gauze padding out his thigh after Frank's dragged buckshot and gravel out of the flesh. He's not the sort who passes out from pain.

Everyone has their limits, is the thing, but Frank's afraid, looking at this mess, that the limit here might be beyond just knocking Cable unconscious from the pain; this looks like the kind of shit that needs a competent surgeon and a medical theater, not field medicine performed by a guy who flunked high school bio. 

That's it's own shade of horror, actually -- it's metal, but it looks like meat, especially blasted open like this. Frank's taken care of what was left of the enemy, picking them off while they crowed their success at having downed one of them, and there's work left to be done -- final sweep, data harvest, destruction of their research and tech labs -- but Frank can't let himself do any of that because as horrible as the idea of laying hands on Cable and somehow making things worse is, the idea of him dying out here, alone, arm shredded to uselessness, is worse.

The weapon that had punched through Cable's metal arm wasn't firing bullets. It was that hard light stuff, like what a number of Cable's own weapons fire. One of the shallower, ostensibly less life threatening wounds, had burned through Cable's idiotically flashy blue shirt right over where the metal bit into the meat of him. It scorched the flesh underneath, as well as melted a divot into the metal side of Cable's chest, just sheering into the metal, leaving it smooth but uneven, like the heat had warped it just a little. 

The wounds get worse going across Cable's chest, as Frank tears his eyes away from the pointless scraps of Cable's top -- the blasts went deeper, like the weapon was firing harder the more shots were fired, until it blasted straight through the metal in three huge holes, one an ugly crescent at the high curve of Cable's shoulder, then the massive hole in his bicep, and then another shorn crater just above his elbow.

If that were on the other side of his body, Frank's certain Cable would not be breathing shallow, rough breaths; he'd not be breathing at all. If those holes were blasted into his flesh, his arm probably wouldn’t be able to hold integrity well enough to remain disturbingly attached. Maybe that’s part of why it looks so horrible.

Frank has always prided himself on being a rather level headed customer. He doesn't get wrapped up in emotional bullshit because there's never a point in it; better to push through and do what needs doing. Panicking doesn't help anyone, least of all himself, so he doesn't indulge in it.

He's not really happy that this is proving to be the thing that tests that perception. 

But goddamnit, he's not a doctor -- or a mechanic -- or whatever the fuck is called for in this case. He's good at killing things, not... this. He's not good at this shit at all.

There's not a lot of blood. The wounds Frank finds that were made by weapons that didn't cauterize what they hit were all entirely minor, and the metal, as previously noted, doesn't bleed. 

Cable still seems to have gone into shock. The shivering, the pallor of his flesh, the tight irregularity of his breathing. He's in shock.

His arm is barely attached to the rest of him, of course he's in shock.

Frank kneels next to him, hands hovering, trying to remember the rhythm for chest compressions, because every now and then Cable just stops breathing, and he says, "I will kill you if you die here, asshole," and kneels there, useless and uncertain.

Nothing makes him feel so stupid or so pointless as not knowing what to do when _ something _ clearly needs to be done.

He can’t help wondering now if he's going to make it worse if he starts compressions when Cable's got so many minor wounds scattered over his chest. As hard as he tries, Frank can't remember a single detail from the emergency stabilizing crash courses he'd had drilled into him. It would maybe be funny any other time, any time when remembering seems less vital to someone else's survival. 

Someone who mattered. 

Okay. Stop fucking around. _ Do something_.

Frank barely brushes the heel of his hand against the center of Cable’s chest and Cable makes a low, unhappy sound as something under Frank's hand _ shifts _ , earning an embarrassing little gasp that’s half shock and half apology, like he's worried he's hurt Cable. Cable gives no sign of pain or of having heard Frank at all, but Frank moves his hands sharply away on some formless intuition, and there's definitely _ something _ going on here.

Truthfully, there's no way for him to know at a certainty if Cable's chest is _ supposed _ to do that, but Frank knows with an intrinsic, instinctual sort of certainty that touching the metal right now is a very bad idea. He knows it like he knows not to play with certain biting animals, the sight of it enough of a deterrent. 

It's _ peeling_.

Frank doesn't think that's a thing it should be doing. It's never really done anything, the metal, except look like a very shiny replacement for an otherwise completely normal arm. Everything about the metal arm has always looked like a note-perfect replica of the organic one. There's never been any clue to Frank -- or anyone else, Frank would imagine -- that the metal is in anyway unusual, the neat plates of it almost always a pristine, gleaming silver. It was properly proportioned and Cable was always careful with his hand when he touched Frank, even if Frank had seen him using it in combat to bat projectiles back toward where they'd come from. It was always seemed durable, solid; it's always seemed indestructible, true, but the huge holes punched through it by that hard light cannon are a crystal clear reminder that whatever else Cable might be, indestructible he is not.

The metal is peeling apart in terrible little straight lines, chunks that start to weave into thicker, irritable looking tentacles that lash and bite at the air. One of these peels away from Cable's chest, from right where Frank had just been about to settle his own hands before he'd jerked them away. 

It’s _ reaching _ toward him. The metal is twisting apart, pulling open like a -- like a grotesque sort of flower, and as more of it pulls open, _ crawling _ over Cable’s wounds, that first big piece is stretched straight toward Frank. Like an accusing finger or a hand reaching for help, and Frank feels an unwelcome sense of disgust crawl up his spine, leaning away where he’s kneeling. That disgust is tangled up with a sort of shame and guilt over feeling it toward any part of Cable, and that can’t be good, right, the metal pulling apart in writhing strands all along the edge of those swiss-cheese holes on Cable’s arm and chest.

He feels like a coward and a jackass, sitting back and watching some weird fucked up shit happen to Cable’s unconscious body, and then he notices the tendrils pulling free on Cable’s chest are digging into the burnt-open wounds in his flesh, threading into the nearest one and seeming to fray apart to fill the gap with more metal.

Maybe that’s supposed to happen, but Frank doesn’t like it. He doesn’t know why, but -- he doesn’t. It’s unnatural looking, and maybe that’s the prejudiced, uneducated human in him, but sitting here watching that metal shit wave around and… and _ intrude _ over the boundary of scar tissue, biting into the flesh so there’s now blood starting to well up, that feels wrong. 

Not a wrong he knows how to stop, but wrong, and Cable’s gasping, pained little groans weren’t exactly lending to any conclusion other than that the metal should _ not _ be doing that.

_ So do something_.

Steeling himself, Frank grits his teeth and leans back forward, intending to -- well, he’s not exactly sure. He doesn’t want to touch Cable, not with all that metal shit going haywire, but he also needs to _ do something _ so maybe try… brushing it back, getting it away from the open wounds. The word that’s in his head as he reaches out is _ distract_, reaching out to push the metal away as it starts crawling from the closed up first wound to another a few inches away, and then he’s struck by what feels like a concussive blast.

There’s no sound, but the force is so strong it picks Frank up and tosses him a few yards, sending him sprawling, ears ringing. He scrambles up, expecting to see -- something awful, a smoking crater or worse where Cable had been. But Cable’s still there, still slumped against a low concrete wall. He doesn’t look so good, but he’s still there.

His arm is… melted? It’s a drooping mess of metal tentacles, writhing together in a sort of nest -- there’s a hint of an arm there, but not much more than that. The whole thing is in an ugly sort of constant motion, thinner pieces waving in the air and longer, thicker ones feeling out the ground under what would have been Cable’s palm.

Frank thinks, in a giddy, manic sort of thought, _ at least the holes are gone! _

True enough, the horrible-looking holes blasted through the metal are gone, absolutely no trace of them, but what good is that when whatever the fuck is happening to his arm is actively happening. 

On his feet, Frank tries to rush back to Cable’s side and finds himself knocked back, more gently this time, when he gets within a few yards. The metal making up a goodly portion of Cable’s side is in riot now, agitated, and Cable’s face is drawn in some kind of pained focus. At this distance, with Cable’s eyes still shut and his brow furrowed so tight, it’s hard for Frank to tell if the other man is awake or not, and he’s not sure which option is better, circumstances given. 

When he tries to take another step, slower this time, toward Cable, he’s nudged back again, Cable’s mind bumping against his hazy and distracted laced with pain and a sense of struggle that aren’t Frank’s. It’s not really words, he doesn’t think Cable could manage words right now, it’s just a sense of _ STAY AWAY_. No anger, maybe a little anxiety, behind the order, and insistent. 

So Frank huffs, pacing away a few steps and then back to that distance, watching. 

It’s ugly to watch. Grotesque in the worst ways imaginable. Frank can do blood and brains and flying viscera, he can watch torture, he can watch a drill chew through the back of his own hand. This bloodless mess is the thing that makes him want to lean over and puke. Maybe it’s the sheer impossibility of what he’s seeing, maybe it’s the agony now cut clearly into every line of Cable’s expression. It all looks wrong, but trying to look away feels worse. 

There’s not much to do but bear witness. Watch the uneven hitch of Cable’s chest as his breathing gets heavier, watch the heels of his boots dig into the dirt as his spine arches and he tenses up all over. Watch sweat bead up all over his face and darken what’s left of his shirt. It’s only when the metal starts twitching and pulling back together, pulling back in to something closer to an ‘arm’ shape, that Frank realizes the struggle Cable’s in is with the metal shit itself.

If Frank’s honest with himself -- and he’s not, a lot of the time, but he tries -- he pushes a lot of things about Cable into a mental folder of ‘examine never’. So much about the larger man is just easier to roll with, accept at face value and move on. Telepathy, telekinesis, ‘time travel’ (whatever the fuck _ that _ entailed); easier to just roll with it. Accept it, do not devote any extra energy to figuring out rules to it, or logic, or reason. The metal shit was very solidly one of those things filed neatly away like that; Cable had a metal arm. Cool. Move on.

Until now -- until literally this exact moment, watching Cable seized up, sweating on the dirt, so clearly in pain as he _ struggles _ with the metal shit, it had never, ever occurred to Frank to think any more about the metal more than situationally necessary. To shiver at the restrained strength in it when Cable touched him with it, to revel in the unyielding hardness of it when he struggled against that grip, to appreciate the raw strength when it was used to rip a locked door open. It was too reactive to be any kind of prosthetic Frank had ever seen, and he’d never seen Cable need to take it off, but that’s closer to what he thought of than… whatever the fuck is happening right now. 

Some kind of hostile intruder, a parasite maybe. Something Cable had to fight with, had to keep from creeping over the healthy muscle and flesh. Something that, when he went deep enough under, became something he had to actively fight back into submission.

Anger is worming its way through the rest of the emotional cocktail bubbling in his chest and Frank’s not even completely certain what he’s angry _ about _. 

Some time later, not more than fifteen minutes, no matter how ungodly eternal it feels in the watching, Cable’s arm tightens back into an arm. There’s a sort of ripple to the surface of the metal and it smooths out to its usual appearance, shiny and clean and whole; smooth silver with shallow corrugation to it. 

Were it not for his torn up shirt and his exhausted slump against that wall, Frank wouldn’t hardly be able to tell anything had happened at all. 

Somehow that makes the anger worse, especially seeing him give himself the space of two ragged breaths before he’s dragging himself to his feet. Shaken, but trying to keep moving. Like it didn’t happen, or the happening didn’t matter.

Part of Frank wants to tell him to sit his ass down and let him finish. Part of him wants to run to him now that he’s sure there’s no wall of psionic push-back to keep them distantanced. Wants to grab him and waste time checking him over, touch him, feel that he’s fine, that this time he didn’t lose anyone. 

_ We can talk about it later _ , Cable says, shaken but calm in Frank’s mind, the words accompanied by a sense of tentative calming, like the asshole wants to soothe _ Frank_, like _ Frank’s _ the one who almost just died. “Let’s finish up here. I’ll buy you dinner.”

It’s not a dismissal and it’s not a brush off, and Frank almost wishes it was because he’s… he’s _ furious _ and there’s no reason to be. He knows this anger, the anger that comes when someone could have gotten killed, by all rights _ should _ have gotten killed, and somehow comes out fine. It’s not real anger, it’s a flightier, anxious cousin, and he hates it.

“Goddamn right you’re buying,” Frank grumbles, doing his best to wall up his thoughts, pack up the emotional bullshit and be done with it. 

They have a job to finish. 

They can pick at this… all the layers of this most recent bullshit, they can work it out later, after Frank’s had time to process through being pissed off about it.

For now, it’s easier to compartmentalize. Focus on the job.

Nothing’s changed, really.

Not yet, anyway.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Anything That Sticks](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21143270) by [inbox](https://archiveofourown.org/users/inbox/pseuds/inbox)


End file.
